Author Archive: Retro

Glen Tryon is learning to drive. He rents a car from Noah Young, gets thirty seconds of instruction from George Rowe and takes girlfriend Blanche Mehaffey for a spin in this fine Roach comedy.Tryon was the latest in a series of normal-looking comedians for Roach that had started with Harold Lloyd’s “Glass” character. While he was a capable performer and Roach’s staff knew how to make a comedy with almost anyone, there was something apparently missing, so Tryon eventually moved on to Universal and a long and successful career largely behind the camera.

Rising Moon loves Little Bear, but her father prefers Standing Rock, a richer suitor. Standing Rock takes her to his teepee under guard, but she escapes and joins Little Bear as they attempt to escape.

A man and his wife are having trouble financially and barely have anything to eat. The grocer and butcher visit and, seeing that the couple cannot pay them, take things from their apartment. Next, a group of men arrive and the couple quickly lock the door to the room, put on disguises and escape to the roof though the window. After a series of incidents, they discover that the men are actually there to tell the man that he has inherited a fortune.

The only way Onésime could think of to get his inheritance quicker was to set the clocks forward. Surprise: the whole world starts speeding up wildly.

In 1830, a train known as the Iron Mule is loaded with passengers, and starts off on its trip. Along the way, the train faces numerous obstacles and delays. The engineer is prepared for most of them, but the real challenges come when the train is ambushed by Indians.

A little girl is kidnapped by the Mafia in revenge for her father’s help in capturing one of the mobsters. She is presumed dead, but in reality is spirited away to Italy, where she is raised as the daughter of a kindly couple. When she is betrothed to the cruel padrone, she disguises herself as a boy and stows away to America, where she finds herself once again in the clutches of the mobster who originally kidnapped her. But this time luck and her own pluck are with her, and the tables are soon turned.